MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s look the missing child in the news. In 2009, Cape Verdean national Euclides Monteiro, 40, died in a tractor accident. His name has been linked the missing child. There is no evidence in the media that he stole the child.

The Guardian notes:

A suspect in the Madeleine McCann case who may have sexually assaulted five British girls in the Algarve up to 10 years ago died in 2009…

The source also said there had been another so far unpublicised incident in which another British girl on holiday with her parents was sexually abused, although he did not go into when this came to light nor where or when it took place.

Any more facts?

The revelations came the day after the Metropolitan police in Britain appealed for information on a total of 12 incidents in which an intruder entered holiday accommodation in three resort areas including one where Madeleine, then three, went missing in May 2007. Four of these cases, between 2004 and 2006, involved assaults on girls aged seven to 10 and one involved two children, according to Scotland Yard, although police in both countries have looked at incidents up to 2010, three years after Madeleine vanished.

The Guardian’s source was careful to say the police had come to “no definitive conclusions” about Euclides Monteiro

And:

The description issued by Scotland Yard did not say the man they were seeking may have been of African origin, describing him the man as “having dark (as in tanned) skin”.

This is Monteiro:

Up until six months before the disappearance of Madeleine, Monteiro had been an employee at the Ocean Complex in Praia da Luz, the resort in which the McCann’s stayed, and was a resident here at the time of her disappearance, the source said.

“The inquiry remains open and so too does the investigation. We have not drawn any definitive conclusions as to whether or not Euclides is our man.

Euclides was convicted of no sex crimes when he was alive. But this is what the Daily Star says:

Sex beast in Maddie case dead: Police identify prime suspect

POLICE in Portugal claim they know the identity of the sex beast British cops believe was involved in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance – and he’s dead.

They know it was him?

A local source said: ‘“He is the main suspect for the incidents involving the girls on holiday and was questioned but there was insufficient evidence.”

So. They don’t know it was him. What else?

The Mirror reports:

Police are investigating the possibility that he kidnapped Maddie after being disturbed as he broke into her family’s apartment

The Mirror persists with calling the child Maddie, despite the fact her own parents called her Madeleine. David Collins’ report then goes on to tick almost every box in his Our Maddie bingo card:

A key suspect in the abduction of Madeleine McCann was fired from the holiday complex where she vanished after police warned staff: “You can’t trust this man.”

Man police are investigating become a “key suspect”. Quoted source is unnamed.

Junkie and ex-jailbird Euclides Monteiro was sacked by the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, Portugal, the year before the blonde three-year-old ­disappeared on May 3, 2007

Her hair colour is relevant? To the Mirror it is.

…phone records have placed him near the flats at the time she vanished. It is believed he may have been raiding guests’ rooms to feed his heroin habit.

May. Believe. Not words you’d associate with fact-based reporting.

Nelson Rodrigues, 32, a barman and waiter at the Ocean Club for two years, worked alongside Monteiro in 2006.

He said yesterday: “On the surface he was a nice guy but there was something not right with him. He would turn up to work with bleary eyes, sometimes he didn’t seem like he was all there. And things were going missing about that time – laptops, jewellery, mobile phones, anything that was lying around.”

He said all that yesterday? In February 2014, he told the Mirror:

“Reception staff, the cleaners, and the maintenance men could all get into rooms… I remember at the time things belonging to guests went missing now and then. Mobile phones, cash, anything valuable lying around.”

And:

Former Ocean Club worker Nelson Rodrigues, told Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt that employees at the complex would have had the perfect opportunity to snatch a child. He said: “Yes, you could suspect (them). The workers there know the shifts and the hours when people are at home or not at home. It’s waiters, barmen, people from maintenance, reception, the cleaners – it’s a lot of staff.”

After that speculation and rehashed old news, The Times has something to add:

Police in Portugal said yesterday they know the identity of the serial sex attacker who British police fear may have killed Madeleine McCann.

She’s dead?

Scotland Yard says it is seeking information about a man who sneaked into bedrooms to assault young girls holidaying with their families on the Algarve on at least 12 occasions. But Portuguese detectives say that man was likely to have been Euclides Monteiro, a convicted burglar and drug addict who they regard as the chief suspect in the Madeleine case.

Adding:

Monteiro had worked at the Ocean Club holiday complex where the McCanns stayed but was sacked a year before Madeleine went missing. He was employed at a water treatment plant in nearby Lagos when Madeleine disappeared but was off work sick for two months following the incident.

The Portuguese investigation is focused on tracing Monteiro’s movements during those two months and police say they have kept Scotland Yard fully informed of developments.

That sounds like some proper investigating work is underway. Good.

…there are signs that the Yard does not agree with its counterparts on the Algarve. It says it is examining a series of linked sex attacks that took place between 2004-2010, indicating that some of the assaults occurred after Monteiro died. Its description of the suspect as darkly tanned could rule out Monteiro who was a black African originally from Cape Verde.

Are the police working on the premise that the innocent child is alive? The Guardian makes a correction:

An article about police investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007 (Madeleine police hunt serial sex attacker who prowled Algarve, 20 March, page 3) said Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood had said the assumption that Madeleine had been alive when she left the apartment “may not follow with all our thinking” on the case. To clarify: those quoted words actually came after Redwood had referred to the assumption that Madeleine had been abducted. However, Redwood did say during the same press conference that police were considering the possibility that Madeleine was not alive when taken from the apartment as well as the possibility that she was.

Any more facts?

Are the Portuguese and British working well together?

The Standard:

Yesterday Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt expressed frustration at the speed of the legal system through which British police have to ask for Portuguese assistance with their inquiry.

He said: “That’s causing us frustration because we know what we want to do and we are ready to go with that. But the process is the process.”

The Mirror:

David Cameron vows to speak to Portuguese government if British cops are hampered with their Madeleine McCann inquiry

He made a vow, a word defined as:

a solemn promise or assertion; specifically : one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition

Did Cameron make a vow?

Speaking today, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Mr Cameron would be prepared to “make further representations” to the government in Portugal if it would help Scotland Yard’s inquiry.

He said: “The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and others have always been clear that they very much support the work that the British police authorities are doing in this and are always prepared to consider whether there is more that can be done and, as part of that, always stand by to make further representations to the Portuguese government for example if that would be helpful. Investigations are rightly for police authorities but If there is more that the Government can do to help facilitate, we would certainly consider that and look to do as much as we could to help.”

So. Now vow.

Eleswhere in the Mirror, Paddy Clancy opines:

Clancy’s craic: The search for Madeleine McCann, or any child, should be above politics

Little Madeleine McCann is a constant reminder for me around this time every year of how devastation can be brought to a family in an instant.

Or you could look at the TV news, with its tales of war, natural disaster and illness. Clancy then pads out his column with questions:

Her disappearance seven years ago remains a great mystery. Who took the three-year-old from her holiday apartment in Portugal while her parents dined nearby? Is she still alive and, if so, is she still under guard? Does she remember who snatched her from her bed or has she now forgotten all that happened in the past to her? Does she even still speak English or has she adapted to the foreign language of her captor? Or is Madeline dead, killed by a captor who has hidden her body so that not a single policeman in Portugal, her home country Britain or her other holiday rendezvous in Donegal has been able to find one trace of what happened?

Concluding:

None of the questions I have raised has been answered.

Maybe he should think up some new questions for next year’s Maddie & Me piece?

Appalling though they are we must remember they are probably contemplated every day by her family. I know they occur to me every year about this time. Why?

Maybe Missy Comly Beattie at Counter Punch knows?

I’m not unique. My thoughts are not different from yours. And I’ve been thinking about the family members of passengers on that missing Malaysian plane. I’m sure you have too. You don’t have to be a parent to be an empath.

I lie in bed and imagine what each of those passengers was doing in the days before boarding. I drink my coffee and think about what I’ve read in the news—debris spotted, that time is slipping away. At any moment, someone I love, someone you love, could make a reservation, make a decision, and then disappear.

Like little Madeleine McCann–in 2007, gone, and now back in the public eye, but she’s never been away from her mother and father’s hearts. Heartbreaking. Heart wrenching.

It could be you. As Parentdish writes:

Madeleine McCann suspect tried to snatch lookalike girl

A dad claims that the main suspect in the Madeleine McCann case tried to abduct his daughter – who is the ‘double’ of the missing girl.

The blue-eyed blonde girl’s father told The Sun the man led away his daughter, then three, before Madeleine vanished.

He said: “Maddie and my daughter are doubles.”

The Sun had reported:

The dad said a man matching the description lured his girl from their cafe in the region on Christmas Day 2006. He recalled: “I looked for her and saw her with a man I took to be Moroccan. We shouted and she stopped and turned. He disappeared.”

The incident took place in Silves — 35 miles from where Madeleine was snatched five months later. It was investigated by ex-cop Dave Edgar — hired by Madeleine’s parents — who linked it to five attacks in the Algarve.

Good work if he did.

The last word in this round-up of news is in the Mail:

The Mail has learned, however, that Scotland Yard detectives do not consider Monteiro to be a strong suspect…

Francisco Moita Flores is sceptical about the new data in the Maddie case. The CMTV commentator says that the alleged rapist that is being sought "is nothing but propaganda" and that the Scotland Yard shouldn't give such relevance to vague data.

Anchor: Moita Flores says that the new suspect that was presented by the Scotland Yard is mere propaganda. The CMTV commentator says that the English police should be less euphorical about such vague elements.

Moita Flores: And all of this is a way to keep a case alight – I don’t know if it’s to squander the fund of millions that the Scotland Yard has to investigate this. What is certain is that none of this can allow us to say that, with this euphoria, that we have another suspect. It’s an excessive euphoria that would compel to discretion, to confidentiality, and the presentation of results "